Speaker 1: And we returned to our American stories. Tiffany Jenkins is
Speaker 1: a wife and a mother of three. She's acquired a
Speaker 1: huge social media following on her blog Juggling the Jenkins,
Speaker 1: where her videos received millions of views. Tiffany wrote a
Speaker 1: highly successful memoir, High Achiever, the shocking true story of
Speaker 1: one addicts double life. Here's Tiffany Jenkins with the rest
Speaker 1: of her story and what it means to be a
Speaker 1: good mom.
Speaker 2: You know what I want to talk about today. I
Speaker 2: want to talk about what it means to be a
Speaker 2: good mom. Okay, because listen, if you look on social
Speaker 2: media and YouTube. Okay, let's take YouTube for example. They
Speaker 2: have tons of videos of families announcing pregnancies to their
Speaker 2: loved ones, right, and it's always so joyous, and everybody's
Speaker 2: still excited and screaming in the yelling and they're like,
Speaker 2: oh my God, finally, thank you. Look at these little booties.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have a grand kid. Okay, that was not
Speaker 2: how my pregnancy announcement went. I had been living in
Speaker 2: a halfway house for two months and I started dating
Speaker 2: this guy and I got an overnight pass. Okay, one weekend,
Speaker 2: I got one overnight pass. I'm not going to go
Speaker 2: into detail about what happened on the overnight pass, but
Speaker 2: let's just say that two weeks later, my body started
Speaker 2: acting a little weird. I didn't have a job or
Speaker 2: a car at the time, so I scraped together some
Speaker 2: quarters and walked my butt down to the dollar a
Speaker 2: tree and bought a pregnancy test. I took a pregnancy
Speaker 2: test in the bathroom u the halfway house I was
Speaker 2: living at with six other women, and when the second
Speaker 2: line popped up, I collapsed on the floor and lost
Speaker 2: my mind. It was not joyous. I was not excited.
Speaker 2: I was here by I had just started gaining trust
Speaker 2: back with my family. What was I gonna tell them?
Speaker 2: I was going to tell the owner of the halfway
Speaker 2: house that I have used the one overnight pass. They
Speaker 2: finally gave me. What was I going to do? I
Speaker 2: couldn't even take care of myself? How was I going
Speaker 2: to take care of a child? I was terrified. I
Speaker 2: prayed out and I said, listen, technically, physically, I know
Speaker 2: why this happened, but like spiritually and mentally, I don't
Speaker 2: know why this happened. Please help me. What am I
Speaker 2: supposed to do? I can't have this baby, and it
Speaker 2: was in that moment that I realized suddenly I wanted
Speaker 2: this baby more than I had ever wanted anything in
Speaker 2: my entire life. I told my sister, you have them,
Speaker 2: basically like, Okay, you're an idiot. I told the owner
Speaker 2: of the halfway house, and he could have kicked me out,
Speaker 2: but he didn't. He let me live there and pay
Speaker 2: rent until I could get out on my feet. So
Speaker 2: I married the man who got me pregnant five months
Speaker 2: after we started dating, and I continued to live in
Speaker 2: the halfway house up until near the end of my pregnancy.
Speaker 2: My recovery didn't stop just because I was pregnant. I
Speaker 2: had to keep working on myself. I got a job,
Speaker 2: busted my butt, got a car, we got an apartment,
Speaker 2: and my son was born on my birthday. It was
Speaker 2: the greatest gift that I've ever received. When my son
Speaker 2: was six months old, I found out I was pregnant
Speaker 2: with the closter. She burst into the world a cologuy
Speaker 2: pury of tears and chaos, and I got postpartum depression
Speaker 2: two weeks after she was born. My bonus daughter came
Speaker 2: to live with us full time, and I was battling
Speaker 2: postpartum depression full on. I went from being a single,
Speaker 2: sexy bachelorette living in a half way house to a
Speaker 2: married mother of three in the span of two years. Okay,
Speaker 2: when it comes to motherhood, I have no clue what
Speaker 2: I'm doing. I don't. When I was suffering from postpartum depression,
Speaker 2: I used to go to social media for support and
Speaker 2: you know, to try to see what other people were
Speaker 2: doing because I had no clue. And I quickly realized
Speaker 2: that it seemed like everybody else had their life together
Speaker 2: while mine was crumbling. Everybody's home looked beautiful, while mine
Speaker 2: looked like a hurricane just ripped through the living room.
Speaker 2: All the moms were posing with their babies, looking so
Speaker 2: perfect and wonderful, while I wanted to leave mine in
Speaker 2: the crib and run out the front door and never
Speaker 2: come back. I can't explain what that did to me
Speaker 2: internally as a person. It made me feel like a failure.
Speaker 2: It made me feel a sheen. It made me feel
Speaker 2: like maybe I wasn't meant to be a mom. There
Speaker 2: was one day, one day, especially where I resented my
Speaker 2: children just for existing. I didn't want to take care
Speaker 2: of them, and more I didn't want to be a
Speaker 2: mile anymore. So I called my doctor crying and I said,
Speaker 2: is it bad that I don't want the kids anymore?
Speaker 2: And they had come into the office right now and
Speaker 2: they got me in the essay and the doctor and
Speaker 2: I worked on a recovery plane for me. Once I
Speaker 2: started to feel better, I started to write, and I
Speaker 2: wrote for numerous reasons. I wrote because it was a
Speaker 2: really therapeutic for me to get it out of my
Speaker 2: head and on the paper. And I chose to share
Speaker 2: my writing because everywhere I looked everything looked so perfect.
Speaker 2: So I thought, maybe if there's just one person out
Speaker 2: there who's feeling the same way as me, they can
Speaker 2: read what I've written and see that they're not alone.
Speaker 2: And that's where juggling the Jenkins was more. A good
Speaker 2: mom is not measured by her ability to keep a
Speaker 2: clean home. Some people have more money than other people,
Speaker 2: some people have more possessions than other people, but none
Speaker 2: of that matters. Life is going to go by like
Speaker 2: this gonna be over before you know it, And I
Speaker 2: promise you that it is not going to say anywhere
Speaker 2: in your obituary her house was really clean. We got
Speaker 2: to stop stressing about the little stuff. We got to
Speaker 2: stop wasting time beating ourselves up over the little stuff
Speaker 2: and start spending more time creating memories with our kid,
Speaker 2: taking on places, putting our phones down, chilling with them,
Speaker 2: going outside. When they come up to you and they say, Mommy,
Speaker 2: will you play with me? Instead of saying just a second,
Speaker 2: just get up and play with them, because I can
Speaker 2: promise you that neither of you will ever regret that decision.
Speaker 2: I have to remind myself of this daily. I'm the
Speaker 2: queen of in just a minute, babe, I'm the queen
Speaker 2: I do it all day long. So I have to
Speaker 2: remind myself that that minute will never come. And I
Speaker 2: know that and they know that, So it is up
Speaker 2: to me to make the minutes count. Now, what makes
Speaker 2: a good mom? I don't think there's one answer. A
Speaker 2: good mom is somebody who doesn't spend hours obsessing about
Speaker 2: how they aren't good enough. A good mom is somebody
Speaker 2: who regnizing that they have a problem and does whatever
Speaker 2: they can't fix it, whether it be addiction, alcoholism, anger, depression, pigging.
Speaker 2: Action makes a good mom, But it all boils down
Speaker 2: to love. Being a shining example to the kids of
Speaker 2: what love is about showing them love and showing others'
Speaker 2: love as often as possible.
Speaker 1: And that was Tiffany Jenkins you were listening to. And
Speaker 1: what a voice and so straight, straight as an arrow.
Speaker 1: And by the way, that line in the beginning, what
Speaker 1: was I gonna do? I can't take care of myself?
Speaker 1: How am I gonna take care of this child? It
Speaker 1: reminds me of the narrator And there goes My life
Speaker 1: by Kenny Chesney. If you remember the lines. All he
Speaker 1: could think about was I'm too young for this, got
Speaker 1: my whole life ahead. Tell I'm just a kid myself.
Speaker 1: How am I gonna raise one? By the way, we're
Speaker 1: never ready to raise a kid. I've had so many
Speaker 1: people say I'm not ready. Well, you're never ready. And
Speaker 1: she jumped in and raised this child. And what great advice.
Speaker 1: And mom's, good ones and good fathers do this too,
Speaker 1: show them love and show others love as often as possible.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm doing, she also said,
Speaker 1: and you know what none of us do. And people
Speaker 1: like love to give a lot of advice about parenting,
Speaker 1: but it's not easy. And if anybody had the formula down,
Speaker 1: well share it. With the world. You'll be a billionaire.
Speaker 1: It's no duck walk, but that advice love others and
Speaker 1: yours as often as possible, about as good as it gets.
Speaker 1: Tiffany Jenkins' story here on our American Stories